Google has reached an agreement to settle a consumer privacy lawsuit, which sought at least $5 billion in damages, alleging that the company tracked the data of users who believed they were browsing privately.
The judge, in a court filing, confirmed that Google’s lawyers have reached a preliminary settlement in the class-action lawsuit, originally filed in 2020. The lawsuit argued that “millions of individuals” were likely impacted.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers were pursuing a minimum of $5,000 for each user they claimed had been tracked by the company while visiting Google Analytics or Ad Manager in “private browsing mode” without being logged into their Google account.
This would have translated to a minimum of $5 billion.
Google, as well as legal representatives for consumers, remained silent in the face of a comment request.
The legal action, initiated in a California court, alleged that Google’s practices intentionally violated users’ privacy through deceptive means.
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According to the initial complaint, Google, along with its workforce, was bestowed with the authority to delve into the intimate facets of individuals’ lives, interests, and online activities.
‘Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it,’ it added.
The preliminary settlement between the parties remained undisclosed, with no specific figure provided.
The formal settlement is expected to receive court approval by February 24, 2024.
Google faced criticism from European consumer groups in 2018 for violating personal data protection rules. The focus of the critique was the persistent tracking of smartphone users’ locations.
Previously, in a separate report from 2017, our correspondent detailed how consumer activists initiated a lawsuit, alleging Google’s illegal collection of data on over five million British iPhone users. The potential payout was speculated to reach into the hundreds of millions.
The advocacy group, known as ‘Google You Owe Us,’ contends that the tech behemoth owes consumers a debt of “trust, fairness, and financial restitution” for the unauthorized placement of cookies on mobile devices during 2011 and 2012.
Initial reports indicated that Google had reached a settlement in a groundbreaking privacy case involving 40 U.S. states, addressing allegations that the tech giant misled users by giving the impression that location tracking was disabled on their devices.
As per a statement, this represented the most extensive multi-state privacy settlement ever achieved by U.S. state authorities. The settlement also included a binding commitment from Google to enhance disclosures, as reported by AFP.